faux patriotism

So let me get this straight; the primary way for Americans to properly respect our country, flag and all those soldiers who died for our right to say what we want, act the way we want, and worship in the manner we see fit is to attend a sporting event and reverently stand while an ode to a night of bombardment during a war we didn’t win, set to the tune of a British drinking song, is sung by some diva trying to sing it completely apart from what it was intended.

southern queer vs. yankee cop

I enjoy the diversity of the waiting room when I go for a routine checkup to my miracle worker, Dr. Lobiondo, Director of the Wound Center at Clara Maass Hospital in Newark, NJ. More than five years ago his rigorous routines completely cured a large open wound on my left leg, a result of lymphedema. For 2 years I had been sleeping in a chair with my legs elevated, but no noticeable improvement. Then I discovered Dr. Lobiondo…

in the past

Used to be customary for folks to take Sunday drives. I don’t think people today tend to do that as much as the older folks did but they should. It’s enjoyable and revealing. Of course we still use “Sunday driver” to describe a driver who dawdles, and dawdling is in order when the drive itself is the destination.

Sunday, September 17 my sister, Deb and family friend Teresa took me to an old cemetery I’d never seen. Across the Savannah …

getting to the whole truth

by Kristie Macrakis
It’s too bad the trial of two CIA contract psychologists who created the “torture” interrogation program in the wake of 9/11 was canceled and the case settled out of court.
The trial, scheduled for September 5, might have provided publicity that could ... Read on →

hidden beauty

by Tom Poland
Labor Day I labored. I wrote the photo captions for my new book due out next spring about lesser-traveled road, a familiar refrain. By now you readers surely can tell what I’m working on by the columns I write. I’ve often ... Read on →

a sooty middle finger

by Noel Holston
I was stopped for a red light while on my way to the grocery store when it pulled up in the lane next to me. I heard its rumble and felt its shadow fall like a partial eclipse before I actually ... Read on →

fight them at every turn

by Mike Cox
I can’t really help myself. It just happens. Whenever I see images of Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, or reasonable facsimiles, I think of Groucho Marx. The comedian from my dad’s generation famously stated that he would never want to join an exclusive ... Read on →

just won't die

by Leon Galis
Yet again, over 150 years after Appomattox, we’re still at one another’s throats about the meaning of the horrendous bloodletting that ended with a half-page of surrender terms and a handshake. The proximate trigger for the recent mayhem in Charlottesville was ... Read on →

fantastic meal #90

by Earl Fisher
Number 91 of my list of the top 100 (mostly Southern) meals and side dishes of all time.
We were not big potato eaters when I was growing up. My mom was a stay-at-home housewife and did most of the cooking, and ... Read on →

kegger stories

by Robert E Hunt Jr
"Jimmy Joe, ground ball back to you, I got the throw at second."
I joined a Greek fraternity at the University of Virginia in the fall of 1976. Like most large schools with dozens of different houses, an incoming freshman had a ... Read on →

values in caricature

by Tom Ferguson
In terms of articulating what's going on, who runs things for whose benefit in the country, hell, the world, we are gifted with two stand-out analysts; Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti. I've been reading Chomsky's first book on the subject, American ... Read on →

climate change is real

by Suz Korbel
Hurricane Harvey has brought death, unfathomable destruction, loss of homes and a deeply distraught community of caring people throughout the world. How can we help? What do we do now?
We will reach out, and ... Read on →

staring at the sun

by Suz Korbel
For one brief, shining moment, we gathered near strangers, didn't fear for our lives, and watched the moon blot out the sun. The moon & sun were gliding all over fly-by land, giving us ... Read on →

doing stupid stuff

by Robert E Hunt Jr
I started my career in information technology in September 1983 at the Wilmington, DE office of Digital Equipment Corporation [DEC]. The Wilmington office serviced the E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co account. Better ... Read on →

context is not pc

by Henry Foresman
Henry Kidd, who identified himself as a former national officer of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, objected to adding context.
“Every tourist who comes to Richmond wants to see Monument Avenue; they don’t want to ... Read on →

who will it be?

by Mike Cox
Republicans: Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Candidate Roy Moore, Candidate Luther Strong
The good folks in my home state of Alabama aren’t too sophisticated when it comes to voting excellent people into office. Consider that Jeff ... Read on →

#charlottesville

by Henry Foresman
"Promise me, son, not to do the things I've done
Walk away from trouble if you can
It won't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek
I hope you're old enough to understand
Son, you don't ... Read on →

fantastic meal #91

by Earl Fisher
Number 91 of my list of the top 100 (mostly Southern) meals and side dishes of all time.
When August drifts around every year, there is little to celebrate here in the Deep South. It's ... Read on →

so easy to steal here

by Tom Ferguson
Mobsters tend to evolve out of inner city poverty. The young look around and notice the people in the neighborhood with flashy lifestyles, who don't go hungry, who lord it over ordinary citizens. They ... Read on →

southern places

by Tom Poland
Down near Yemassee, South Carolina, is a country club like no other. Harold’s Country Club proclaims that it is “in the middle of nowhere but close to everywhere.” That’s true. You’ll find it off ... Read on →

fight like hell for the living

by Jaz Brisack
I stepped in an anthill at 4:17 yesterday morning, as I pounded a yellow “Union Yes” sign into the dewy ground outside the mile-long Nissan factory in Canton, Mississippi.
Later in the day, on my ... Read on →

more a direction

by Louie Crew Clay
On July 17, 1936, five months before I was born, an area of 393 acres of wilderness in Alabama's Talladega County was established as a U.S. National Forest. One of its many glories is ... Read on →

in the war on science

by Dave Pruett
Earlier this month, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a damning report: Sidelining Science Since Day One—How the Trump Administration Has Harmed Public Health and Safety in Its First Six Months.
The value of science ... Read on →

southern addiction

by Mike Cox
The recent stunning downfall of the Ole Miss football coach has all the elements of a Southern Gothic tale. I’m surprised this wasn’t based on a Faulkner novel. Hugh Freeze resigned abruptly after being ... Read on →

abstraction distraction

by Trevor Stone Irvin
The word “authentic” is being tossed around a lot these days … another empty-calorie, tasteless ingredient in today’s word salad. The kale of the word world.
The other day, a leaking pustule of a man, ... Read on →

it all comes down to this

by Will Cantrell
I swear, I don't know what gets into people.
This latest head scratcher starts when the morning’s news feed flashes a headline about an American from Virginia Beach, Virginia who gets "run through" – i.e.: seriously ... Read on →

shoe already dropped

by Matt Blakely
For months, there has been smoke; thick, black smoke that cannot be seen through. It certainly seemed like the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, something seemed suspicious, but there was never any proof. But ... Read on →

we must dissent

by Louie Crew Clay
Salute This Flag
The Fourth of July
Was a holiday for everybody but people’s cooks
Corinne was fixing us hot biscuit
When I marched into the kitchen
Waving the Stars and Stripes
And ordered to
“Salute this flag! It made your ... Read on →

100 million

by Tom Poland
She kept the old churn in the kitchen. I see it vividly, even now. I watched my Grandmother Poland churn butter, a memory that sure seems old-fashioned in this digital age. I have no ... Read on →

and then i knew

by Dave Pruett
I worshipped the man.
Like a puppy, I waited expectantly his daily homecoming, ever eager to ask a child’s question: “What kind of day did you have?” “Oh, I had a good day,” he might ... Read on →

remembering

by Ken Peacock
Late in the afternoon a strange noise came from the vegetable garden beside the house, it was the sound of a bird in distress. The bird was squeaking, flapping its injured wing and hopping ... Read on →

throwback to another era

by Tom Poland
A Scene From The Past
“The pump don’t work ’cause the vandals took the handles,” wrote Bob Dylan as he closed out “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Vandals have yet to get the handle of the pump ... Read on →

like before fox news

by David Parker
Make America Great Again
Words by Gary Moore, annotations by David Parker
Make America great again[1]
Make America great again[2]
Lift the torch of freedom[3] all across the land[4]
Step into the future joining hand in hand
And make America ... Read on →

even uncle sam has bad days

by JL Strickland
On the Fourth of July, we naturally think of Uncle Sam, our nation's favorite icon. While I try to keep a positive attitude about Uncle Sam in July, I can't forget the day the ... Read on →

"The Elections Are Rigged" Arnold Schwarzenegger On Trump, Congress, Gerrymandering

Trump's Climate Change RollbackReviewed By Woodsy The Owl

random stories from our past

August 13th is National Left-handers’ Day. I will celebrate quietly. I’m not sure about my sister; she is also a southpaw. That means our parents created two left-handed children, well above the national average of 10 to 13 percent.
If you believe human traits are the result of parenting ...

Last week Americans saw heavy media coverage of the death 50 years ago of President John F. Kennedy. I couldn't help but compare the aftermath and funeral of JFK with that of Abraham Lincoln, both victims of assassins.
One reason this came to mind is because I had just finished a year-long projec...

The latest information about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 can be found here.
In summary, of the $787 billion approved to be either spent or not collected as taxes, $515 billion have been allocated, so far. Although the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 3.3 million...

I was nine, maybe ten. My heart was pounding like a sub-woofer and I could barely hold the wheel with my tiny, sweaty, trembling hands. I was driving the family car down Highway 5 outside Centreville, Alabama.
I couldn’t reach the pedals so my dad was helping with those, but I was driving the c...

There may be treasures in your attic or in some seldom-visited closet. You can never tell.
We stumbled upon quite a treasure the other day, something we did not know was there.
It was a large-format book, in a box of textbooks and other literature, probably from one of our children. Going thro...

Based on the online obituary’s time stamp, she died just a short while earlier this Wednesday evening, but the earthy, authentic voice of Mary Travers of “Peter, Paul, and Mary” fame will continue to live on for some time, and not just in the trio’s videos on YouTube either.
Among the sto...

Genuine two-party politics takes some getting used to around Georgia. For most of our lives, winning the Democratic primary was “tantamount to election,” as all the papers used to say.
No more, however.
The more things change, the more they stay the same is what some might say, though. In ...

The KKK had their say in the mountain town of Ellijay. Hispanics are bad, a black President worse. God bless white, their vile words filled with anger and spite. Remove the sheets, a blight on white, and the words sound eerily familiar, just turn on the radio, tv, internet. Listen. The crowd simil...

I’m all about the Second Amendment these days. Especially my right to keep and bear a pellet gun. High velocity. Single shot. With a scope.
It’s really more about being anti-squirrel than pro-gun. I was all right with the hordes of squirrels that besiege my neighborhood, dropping batches of b...

After virtually two years of campaigning, the election is over. While we may complain about the length of the campaigns, especially compared with some parliamentary countries where they can elect a new government within a few weeks, overall, we stand satisfied with the long campaign. Eventually, new...

CHARLESTON, S.C. – With the eyes of the nation this week on civil rights, let’s turn our focus to a painting inspired by a Louisiana event that astonished America when it came out 46 years ago.
In 1964, artist Norman Rockwell, the well-known illustrator of iconic images of the American dream, u...

One usually arrives early and sits patiently. Others file in slowly, leaning on walkers. Some carry oxygen tanks. Many come in wheelchairs, a rolling procession that looks like a car race just as the caution flag comes out. Some amble in using canes and the newer style walking sticks, the kind y...

The news earlier this month of the reopening of the Statue of Liberty, once again letting tourists wiggle their way through the iconic figure on Liberty Island, had me tumbling backward to a memorable trip my family took to New York in the early 1990s.
Right here in metro Atlanta, of course, we h...

“For evil to happen, all that is necessary is for good [people] to do nothing.”—Edmund Burke
It’s a question that must be asked.
Aristotle defined evil simply as untruth. By this yardstick, Trump—who revels in fake news, alternative facts, birtherism, and Breitbart conspiracies—qua...

Since early on New Year's Day, I have been inundated with phone calls and emails asking why I did not write a New Year’s Resolution column. Okay, inundated may be a bit of an overstatement, although I did get a call from a neighbor requesting that I keep my cat off of his porch, and I did receiv...

The Komen Foundation's public rationale for defunding lifesaving services at Planned Parenthood clinics throughout the country, as summed up by the press, "is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation in Congress—a probe launched by a conservative Republican who was urged to act by anti-abort...

Of all the distinctive experiences in my life, there have been only two that have totally brought me to a halt, changing my landscape to the point that the line before and after are dark and broad strips as though made with a blunt and heavy magic marker. There is no ambiguity that the line is one o...

You’ve heard the story so many times, you already know what the bereaved parents or aunts or neighbors are going to say. You don’t, you can’t, know the horror and dread that’s ahead for the loved ones after a child dies from an accidental gunshot.
A brother, a playmate, someone innocent, ...

Who wants to intervene in the Syrian civil war? Opinion polls on both sides of the Atlantic make it clear that while events in Syria are tragic there is no desire for involvement in another war in the Middle East. Recent experience has taught the public lessons about their cost and futility. Instead...

When I was young, I lived on MacDill Air Force Base. Our apartment backed up to a baseball field. That is where we met Mehitabel. Mehitabel was a fluffy, black cat. We would use the mowed grass to make forts, and, one day, Mehitabel arrived, hanging out in our fort and acting, for all the world, lik...

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Quotes & Stuff

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